Letter: Allow students time to finish test

To the editor

Published 2:19 pm, Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Emphasis on standardized tests has frustrated me for years, but today's English Language Arts test really put the frosting on the cake.

I watched as a roomful of Acadia Middle School's motivated, eager students who wanted to do well on these tests wrote to the best of their abilities, only to discover their desire to produce thoughtful, comprehensive responses had cost them in the long run because they were not provided enough time to complete the test. Most wrote almost until the end of the session and had no time to check their answers and revise their work. Students actually felt betrayed and penalized for their conscientiousness, and rightly so.

We are not talking about a few isolated cases, but a widescale occurrence evident in three district middle schools. I have no investment in terms of evaluation based on these tests as I am retiring this year, but if the state wants valid evidence that students are meeting the raised standards, it must allow students the resources to prove themselves. This would include providing sufficient time to adequately complete the only measure that is used to measure their improvement. Otherwise, how reliable are these tests as a measure of what our students can do?